Hello everyone, in this Coffee Coaching session, I’m very excited to introduce you to the split mirror backup and rollback functionality which we have recently added to HP Smart Array controllers and managed through ACU

Split Mirror backup and rollback is a functionality of the HP Smart Array Controllers and Managed through ACU. It allows you to instantaneously create a snap shot back up of the data in your array. This feature allows you to modify the data in the array and at same time in the future keep the changes permanently or roll back the changes and restore the changes to the backup copy. As a bonus, most of these tasks can be performed while the Operating system such as Windows Server is online.

The hardware and software requirements for using split mirror backup and rollback in ACU are as follows:

A split Mirror Back up is a performed by breaking a mirrored array into 2 arrays. A mirrored array is an array that contains one of the following: Raid 1, 1+0, 1(ADM), or 10 (ADM) with all the logical drives with the same RAID level. As part of the split process the following table shows how the arrays will be split:

Original Array

Primary Array

Backup Array

RAID 1

RAID 0

RAID 0

RAID 1+0

RAID 0

RAID 0

RAID 1 (ADM)

RAID 1

RAID 0

RAID 10 (ADM)

RAID 1+0

RAID 0

Once you are ready let's procceed:

Open ACU

Select the array controller we want to manipulate

Next, we select the array we wish to split. Click the "Create Split Mirror Backup" task, read the warning, and click on OK.

That's it! The array has been split and a snapshot backup has been created.

Let's examine our new configuration:

* The original array is broken into 2 arrays.

* The original array retains the original logical drive. This drive has changed RAID level to RAID 0.

* A new "backup" array that contains a "backup logical drive" is created. The backup logical drive contain a snapshot of the information that was present in the original logical drive at the time of the split. The backup logical drive also provides a timestamp of when the backup was created.

* The backup logical drive is not visible to the operating system.

You can now make changes to the data in the logical drive, such as updating software, etc.

When you select the array, you will see a new task: “Manage Split Mirror Backup”. When you click on this task you will see the three options that you can follow: 1) Re-mirror the array and preserve the existing data. This destroys the snapshot backup. 2) Re-mirror the array and rollback to the contents of the backup array. This destroys the current contents of the drive. 3) Activating the backup array will make it into an independent array so you can have access to both the updated data and the snapshot data at the same time.

Let’s select the first option: re-mirror the array and preserve the updated data.

Let's examine our new configuration:

* The 2 arrays that were created in the first step are combined into a single mirrored array.

HP’s split mirror functionality allows you to take advantage of the properties of mirrored arrays to quickly make snapshot copies of your data. The new split mirror backup and rollback functionality available on the latest Smart Array controllers lets you easily manage this process without having to bring your server offline.

Thank you for joining me for this Coffee Coaching session on split mirror backup and rollback using ACU.